Abstract
Despite their simple syntactic form, adjective-noun combinations seem to have no straightforward semantic method that parallels the simplicity of the syntax. Conventionally, adjectives are to blame for this behaviour. Such a belief has culminated in the generally accepted view that adjectives should be semantically analyzed as belonging to a hierarchy of the following structure [1, 2]:
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Intersective e.g. red as in That is a red rose
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Subsective:
– Subsective-only e.g. veteran as in John is a veteran soldier
– Double or “doublet” e.g. beautiful as in Maria is a beautiful dancer
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Non-subsective:
– Non-privative e.g. potential as in John is a potential candidate
– Privative e.g. fake as in That is a fake gun
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References
Kamp, H., Partee, P.H.: Prototype theory and compositionality. Cognition 57, 129–191 (1995)
Siegel, M.: Capturing the adjective. PhD dissertation. The University of Massachusetts at Amherst (1976)
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Abdullah, N., Frost, R. (2004). Two Set-Theoretic Approaches to the Semantics of Adjective-Noun Combinations. In: Tawfik, A.Y., Goodwin, S.D. (eds) Advances in Artificial Intelligence. Canadian AI 2004. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 3060. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-24840-8_52
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-24840-8_52
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